The Apple Keyboard light blinks twice when the keyboard is ready to be paired via Bluetooth with a Mac or another device, indicating it is ready to be setup. In other words, if you just got a brand new Apple Keyboard then the light will blink when turned on, and you need to pair it to a Mac before it will work. But that’s not our focus here, this article is for troubleshooting the rare situation where the Apple Keyboard indicator light will randomly start blinking twice after disconnecting from the computer for no obvious reason, typically met with the MacOS Bluetooth preference panel reporting errors like “Not Connected”, “Couldn’t connect to the device”, and “Pairing failed”.

If you run into the blinking keyboard light problem seemingly out of nowhere on an Apple Keyboard that has already been paired with the Mac before, or after a Mac has been asleep and then woken up, you can typically fix the blinking keyboard light problem with a relatively simple troubleshooting approach.

Before beginning, be sure the Apple keyboard batteries are sufficiently charged. If the battery charge is too low or zero, the Bluetooth connection will not sustain itself or even initiate at all. In fact if the keyboard is disconnecting seemingly at random, it’s likely because of battery. This article does not aim to be another general Bluetooth device disconnection troubleshooting guide however, and instead is focused specifically on the twice-blinking light on Apple Keyboards after they have already been setup before.

The blinking Apple Keyboard light looks like the following, the light is at the top of an Apple Keyboard and will blink twice, then briefly stop, then blink twice again, repeating until the keyboard is either paired or turned off:

Wait! Is the Apple Keyboard new? Did you Setup & Pair the Bluetooth Keyboard and Mac Yet?

The reason the Apple Keyboard light blinks twice is to indicate it needs to be setup and paired to the Mac. Typically this only happens when the the Apple Keyboard is brand new or being setup with a new Mac.

If you have not setup the Apple Bluetooth keyboard on the Mac yet, do that first by going to the Bluetooth control panel ( Apple menu > System Preferences > Bluetooth) and pair the Apple Keyboard to the Mac.

Remember, the guide here is aimed at users who experience the blinking light keyboard issue at random on a Mac that was already configured to use the paired keyboard.

How to Fix Blinking Apple Keyboard Light on a Mac

Try this simple approach first to resolve the blinking keyboard light issue:

Turn the Apple Keyboard off (hold the power button for a few moments)

Pull down the  APPLE menu and choose “System Preferences” then go to the “Bluetooth” preference panel

Click “Turn Bluetooth Off”

Now go back to the  Apple menu and choose “Restart”

When the Mac starts back up, go back to the  Apple menu > System Preferences > Bluetooth, an now choose “Turn Bluetooth On”, then leave the Bluetooth preference panel open

Turn the Apple Keyboard ON again by pressing the power button

Wait a moment and the Apple Keyboard should appear within the “Devices” list of the Bluetooth preference panel and re-sync

That should fix it, but if the Apple Keyboard is still not working you may need to go a step further and remove the paired keyboard from the Mac, then reboot and pair the keyboard yet again. Those steps are covered next.

Enter the numbers shown on screen via the connected Apple Keyboard to pair the keyboard to the Mac

The removal and pair again approach works every time that I personally have run into this issue on my Apple Keyboard, but since it’s slightly more cumbersome than the first approach, which often works too, it’s included as secondary troubleshooting tip.

The above steps should do the trick. If for whatever reason you continue to have difficulty with Bluetooth keyboard, you might want to reset the Bluetooth module on a Mac and start over. That should really not be necessary for the vast majority of Bluetooth troubles however, and usually just confirming the battery is sufficient and then pairing a device again is sufficient to remedy a Bluetooth connection problem.

5 Comments

Wait a minute. Am I not reading something here? In one of your steps you mention to turn off blue tooth, and then turn it back on. If you turn off the blue tooth how are you supposed to enable it? Are we assuming that your mouse is usb or you have a usb keyboard sitting around?

This fails to address the fact that most Mac users now have bluetooth mice, too…. One cannot access menus and such on a non-laptop model without either a keyboard or a mouse being connected, so the first part of the fix is useless….

As a support professional, I’d advise powering off the device(s) and removing it from the bluetooth preference pane. Then turn the device back on and follow the system prompts to pair it.

In my experience, I’ve seen this issue most often with desktop models coming out of sleep mode. If the keyboard continues to be an issue in that regard, but is otherwise working properly, I advise my customers to simply turn the keyboard off before putting the Mac. in sleep mode and, upon “waking” the Mac up to do so by clicking the mouse instead and waiting for the Mac to be ready to “do stuff”, then turning the keyboard on. This seems to eliminate the issue most of the time. In quite a few cases, also, having the preferences for the device set to allow it to wake the Mac from sleep eliminates the connection issue.

Another thing to check is to make sure the keyboard’s firmware is up-to-date. Some of the aluminum models have firmware updates for them through Apple.

You can’t do anything about system settings because you can’t log in to the 🖥 without entering the password. SOLUTION!!! Turn off the computer- unplug it if you have to- and then turn it back on. Easy as that for me. Hope it works for you!

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